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American Sign Language (ASL), like any other language, allows you to communicate your feelings. You can sign about how that movie made you sad or how seeing your Deaf friend made you happy: Angry: Make the open-5 hand shape, palm toward your face, and pull your hand away from your face, scrunching up your fingers.

Practice signing these basic expressions in American Sign Language (ASL) to meet and greet people, join in on conversations, answer questions, and be polite and courteous.

Learning the manual alphabet in American Sign Language (ASL) will help you when you don’t know a sign as you begin communicating. If you don’t know the sign for something, you need to use the manual alphabet to spell the word, or fingerspell. Check out and practice the manual alphabet:Note: If you need to fingerspell a word that has two letters that are the same, make a small bounce between the letters or simply slide the repeated letter over slightly.

In American Sign Language (ASL), knowing how to sign the cardinal (counting) numbers helps you in everyday situations like banking and making appointments. Pay attention to the way your palm faces when you sign numbers. For 1 through 5, your palm should face yourself. For 6 though 9, your palm should face out toward the person who’s reading the sign.

As you become more confident in your ability to communicate through American Sign Language (ASL) and begin to meet Deaf acquaintances and form friendships, keep some simple etiquette do’s and don’ts in mind.Do’s To get a Deaf person’s attention, tap him or her on the shoulder or flick the light switch. Let a Deaf person know that you can hear and that you’re learning Sign.

Signing one-word questions in American Sign Language (ASL) is a way to initiate small talk, get to know people, and gather information. When you sign these one-word questions, look inquisitive; the facial expression will come naturally when you are genuinely interested. Also, tilt your head and lean forward a little as you sign the question.

Signing and singing with children go together as naturally as peas and carrots. In fact, lots of children’s songs already have motions to them, but be careful to be clear that they’re “motions” and not actual signs. Pick out one or two words to sign from each song, instead of trying to sign all the words. Pick words that occur frequently in the song or are part of the climax of the song so that you can be dramatic and call attention to those particular signs.

American Sign Language (ASL) was developed in the 1800s, and a significant Deaf community in the U.S. has used it ever since. ASL isn’t related to English, although it borrows from English — as many spoken languages do. ASL has a word order that’s different from English, and it has its own idioms, jokes, and poetry — all unrelated to English.

The majority of American Sign Language (ASL) sports signs look like what they represent. For example, the signs for tennis and baseball mimic the swing of a racket and bat, respectively. Don’t you just love it when signing is this easy? This table shows you popular sports signs. Signing ball is easy: Mimic putting both hands on a ball; do it with a double motion.